Lines
by varietyofwords
Summary: Chuck and Blair. Oneshot. Pre-pilot. Limoversary. Because there are some lines you just don't cross with Blair Waldorf unless you know she's sure. "I'm not really one for boundaries."


**Author's Note:** Written for the first prompt of the sixth Limoversary – "1 word, 3 letters". This story is set pre-pilot and several years before the infamous limo ride we all love to celebrate.

* * *

Feet crossed daintily at the ankles and tucked to the side, wrinkle-free skirt fanned out over her legs because no part of her bare skin will touch the leather seat serving as her throne this afternoon. There is no telling what has spilled, or consumed, off the seats of this din of inequity on wheels, and she is not about to allow her delicate skin to be the test strip for the Center of Disease Control's investigation.

Given who she is, though, she somewhat of an idea about exactly what she might find or, worse, contract thanks to the rumors and gossip added to her arsenal via an antiquated game of telephone between the freshmen of Saint Jude's and Constance where Kati and Iz find out about conquests direct from the source and feed the information to her before it reaches the ears of the ruling queen. Worker bees operating to take apart the hive from within at her direction because knowledge is power and there is only room for one queen on the steps of the MET.

"Don't tell me you're still afraid of cooties, Waldorf," he says with a teasing smirk. He leans across the seat to stare at her, to breathe his taunts in her face. "Don't worry. I doubt Nathaniel has anything to give you."

"Unlike you," she snaps in reply as she raises her bare hand to his face and pushes his leering gaze away from hers. The movement causes her hand to brush against the exposed leather of the back of her seat, and she snatches her hand back to the safety of her lap with the speed of someone who has been burned. "Or, your precious limo."

A look of sheer disgust passes over her face as she contemplates the germs and filth surely covering her fingers – her fat, sausage-like fingers that will never be dainty and delicate like Audrey's or long and skinny like Serena's. She curls her hand into a fist at the thought, buries it away in her lap least she has to look upon such a disgusting sight any longer.

"And to think I had the limo detailed just for you."

A look of surprise flitters across her face; an involuntary reaction she curses herself for because she'll never be queen if she continues to be so expressive, so easy to read. A fact that she curses herself for further when his pleasure in her reaction becomes obvious in the way his chuckles implies the exact opposite of what he told her.

A look of disgust flitters across her face; an involuntary reaction that causes him to leans closer to her and offers her a smarmy smirk. A fact that she curses herself for further when he breathes smarmy words about romantic candlelight at midnight in her face.

"Unless that's the reason why you haven't let Nate seal the deal yet. Candles not hot enough for you, Waldorf?"

"Ugh, you're heinous," she groans in disgust as she shoves his face away from hers once more, as she takes care not to brush her hand against the leather seat again.

"Yes, but that's why I'm here," he reminds her with a knowing smirk because she'll never be able to deny it and there's only two reasons why Blair Waldorf would give him a call – one, to find out what is going on in her boyfriend's head and, two, to offer him an opportunity to be on the ground floor of a scandal. "So what exactly are you offering? A chance to cause some trouble? Uncover a secret?"

"Better," she says in reply with a smile because, even for a pervert, he knows her well and they do share a mutual love of scheming, of pulling the strings and orchestrating the Upper East Side to behave like the puppets its inhabitants are. "Total social destruction."

"Ah, your specialty," he muses. "And who's the victim this time?"

The name over her mortal enemy is spat out in disgust causing him to sit up a little straighter, to look a little more eager because Georgina Sparks is a bitch and who wouldn't want to take her down? Except he knows from experience that the crazy ones are the hardest ones to shake, and it took calling in big, bad Bart to clean up one of his many messes – Bart's words, not his – in order to get rid of the psycho when one night in sixth grade became his living nightmare.

A call he is not willing to make again; a fact he is about to share with the brunette seated beside him until he looks into her eyes, until he sees the worry brewing under the harsh exterior that grows icier with every passing day. Her concern for the blonde that makes up the final piece of their little foursome – the two often drunk screw-ups plus the two perfect high school sweethearts – she often times has to chase and rescue from drinking and dancing in bars not even he will frequent giving him more than enough reason to take on Georgina Sparks' particular brand of crazy once more.

"Take yes as an answer."

"Perfect."

She leans forward to pull her supplies – he spotted the black coder just as soon as she got into his limo – out of her handbag with an eager smile. Yet for all her excitement, she is still careful not to touch the leather of the seat, the wood paneling of the door, or the carpeting of the floor unless absolutely necessary. Her notebook is spread out in her lap; pen uncapped and ready for their brainstorming session. And he slides across the seat to get a closer look at the list of ideas she's already made, begins mentally crossing them off as too amateur or part of his prior failures as his body brushes up against hers.

"What do you think you're doing, Bass?"

He slides his gaze from her notebook to her face yet barely has a moment to register her indignation before he is unceremoniously shoved across the bench seat away from her. His elbow slams into the door of the limo – surprising hard given how poised and petite she is – and then it is his turn to act indignant and shocked at how she would behave.

"What was that for, Waldorf?"

"Boundaries," she growls in reply with a gesture to the space between them. And this time she does not give a second thought to sexual transmitted infections or rare diseases picked up only in Brooklyn as she jams her fingers into the leather of the limo's backseat and points to the line of stitching demarcating the empty, middle seat between them. "You are not supposed to cross that line unless I say so."

"Ah, yes, the Waldorf Parallel. I'm guessing its enforcement also comes between you and Nate?"

"That's none of your business," she snaps reaching up to adjust her headband and then returning her hand to the line when he dares to lean back across it and ask about how she plans to repay him for assisting her. "Don't cross that line."

"I'm not really one for," he trails off as he dares to allow his fingers to slide over the line of stitching she established and holds more firmly and with more militant gusto than the one at thirty-eight degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, "boundaries."

"With me, you are," she reports as she slaps away his hand and moves her purse between them to serve as a barricade. "You will ask if I'm sure before you step one toe over that line."

He leans back in his seat and watches her go back to her brainstorming, watches her begin to conjure up schemes and ways to keep their wayward classmates in line for moment before he dares to move his hand to toe the line once more, before he looks at her with a smirk as her eyes slide sideways to watch him.

"You sure?"

His question is spoken in his patented, smarmy tone. His answer found in the simple one word, three letters reply snapped at him as Blair lowers the partition separating them from the chauffeur up front.

"Arthur, take me home immediately before your employer molests me further. And, in the future, remind me to never accept a ride home from Chuck Bass again. I'd be safer on the subway."


End file.
